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axlrose15

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On 7/29/2019 at 2:08 PM, DieselDaisy said:

 

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I’ve got that Russell on my shelf with my notes in it and all, though I can’t bring any of it to mind. Will have to revisit.

travellers is an oral history?

hey, are oral histories more helpful when they come from a less documented time ( like 1930-40) so that they can fill in the gaps? Or are they more useful if gathered now about contemporary issues since there is more data to compare and contrast with the oral accounts?

 

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4 hours ago, soon said:

I’ve got that Russell on my shelf with my notes in it and all, though I can’t bring any of it to mind. Will have to revisit.

travellers is an oral history?

hey, are oral histories more helpful when they come from a less documented time ( like 1930-40) so that they can fill in the gaps? Or are they more useful if gathered now about contemporary issues since there is more data to compare and contrast with the oral accounts?

 

Yes.

I don't quite understand the question - sorry.

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8 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Yes.

I don't quite understand the question - sorry.

Yeah, I get that. Hmmmm, I mean like Im sure historians scrutinize oral history in a specific way. It has its own unique role in methodology? Maybe?

Like when do historians value oral histories more? When they help fill in potentially unknown info from the past, or when their veracity can be more tested in the present, on current issues?

(if I still dont make sense you can just call me a dummy and Ill drop it, haha)

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5 minutes ago, soon said:

Yeah, I get that. Hmmmm, I mean like Im sure historians scrutinize oral history in a specific way. It has its own unique role in methodology? Maybe?

Like when do historians value oral histories more? When they help fill in potentially unknown info from the past, or when their veracity can be more tested in the present, on current issues?

(if I still dont make sense you can just call me a dummy and Ill drop it, haha)

It is the type of history you're writing. A bunch of dry stats are not going to fill in what it was like to experience say the industrial revolution, life in ancient Rome or as here, life in the Third Reich. Only diaries and so forth can set forth the human experience. This is especially true for bottom up (regular people's) histories. The diaries/writings of people like Cicero, Napoleon and Hitler have long since been used to provide a top down politico-history (i.e., the history of great men and great events).

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15 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

It is the type of history you're writing. A bunch of dry stats are not going to fill in what it was like to experience say the industrial revolution, life in ancient Rome or as here, life in the Third Reich. Only diaries and so forth can set forth the human experience. This is especially true for bottom up (regular people's) histories. The diaries/writings of people like Cicero, Napoleon and Hitler have long since been used to provide a top down politico-history (i.e., the history of great men and great events).

Thanks man! I get it now.

Sounds like a timely read, I should have mentioned earlier.

My pal, a historian as well, collected an oral history of US War Resisters who fled to Canada and no one will publish it. So I wondered if oral histories were looked down on in the field. Guess its just the 'victors writing history' thing, maybe.

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15 minutes ago, soon said:

So I wondered if oral histories were looked down on in the field.

There is a bit of that. They're mostly seen as ''populist'' history, i.e., the type of books people buy at airports, as opposed to ''academic'' history. Steven Ambrose's military history books, e.g., Band of Brothers, rely on an oral approach, and are seen as populist history. There is a bit of academic sniffyness. It doesn't help that a lot of populist-oral histories are international bestsellers. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

salem's lot (stephen king) one of the very first "big" novels that i've read. I still come back to this from time to time, for the excellent characters this book paints. this is one of my favorite king novels. it's been a couple of years. i feel like having another go at it

 

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I'm going to challenge myself to read one work by the following Canadian historians/journalists/authors by first snow. If anyone wants to join me in reading one of the authors, lets coordinate?!?

Starting with the above work of Joseph Boyden and continuing in no specific order:

- George Woodcock

- Maggie Siggins

- Yves Engler (Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy)

- Harsha Wallia (Undoing Border Imperialism)

- Pierre Burton

- Waubgeshig Rice (Legacy)

- John Ralston Saul

- Claire Culhane (Barred From Prison)

- Gord Hill (500 Years of Resistance)

- Writings of the Vancouver 5

- Peter Edwards (One Dead Indian)

- David J Bercuson (Fools and Wisemen)

- Elvera Bergen Goerz (All the way Home)

 

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32 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

Bollocks to that lefty crap. This is the type of Canadian history you should be reading,

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Foreign policy is a lefty thing? I really wish we'd get to guide it in that case! haha

I mean, Im satisfied with the amount of War of 1812 history that I read on the back of local craft beer bottles and boxes of Laura Secord chocolates. 

But you being my historian I will add this to my marathon reading list, thanks. If, that is, you would read a book from my marathon Canadian books list?

Whats good, other than scooners, about this book and author? (Hits-Man who writes about war!! Stranger than fiction!)

 

 

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